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Billionaire and former gubernatorial candidate Tom Golisano announced that he will contribute $5 million to a PAC, called “Responsible New York”, that will support candidates who are “consistent” with an 8-point platform. He even held up a check for the $5 million that he said will be deposited tomorrow. He also said the paperwork for the PAC will be sent today to the state Board of Elections.

Golisano spent the first part of the news conference lamenting the issues he felt were problems in New York. And at one point asked, “Don’t we have any pride left in this place? We act like we don’t.”

More on the platform below, but first a few other highlights:

Golisano didn’t rule out another gubernatorial run: “I think about it every day. But not now.”

He’s spoken with Kathy Konst, “Baby Joe” Mesi, and Rick Dollinger – all Democratic challengers to Republican incumbent senators – but he emphasized that no decisions have been made about endorsements. He wouldn’t say that he wanted to see the Republican Senate majority overturned. He dismissed earlier reports about endorsements, “Let’s write that off to media over enthusiasm.”

He said he would be supporting Democrats, Republicans, independents, Independence candidates, anyone who would follow the platform.”It depends on who they are and what their philosophy is.”

He hasn’t spoken with either Sheldon Silver’s primary challengers, Luke Henry and Paul Newell, but he was heavily critical about the power that leadership has over individual legislators.

He maintains that his project is entirely legal, and his spokesman Steve Pigeon said he doesn’t anticipate any legal challenges. However, there are nuances of his proposed PAC that don’t coincide with the Board of Elections rules.

Golisano maintains that the work that is being done by the PAC will be entirely independent of the campaigns. The PAC will be sending out questionnaires to all candidates and based on their responses, and possibly interviews, the PAC will decide whether to work to support them. Golisano said that all of these activities would jive with election law, but how exactly that reconciles with the election law against coordination isn’t yet clear.

The 8-point platform:

Responsible budgets (budget increases limited to the rate of inflation)

The PAC will be co-chaired by Laureen Oliver, former State Chair of the New York Independence Party and Steve Pigeon, former Erie County Democratic Chairman.

For those of you out there who are involved in campaigns and want to see what the new PAC is looking for, here’s the mission statement, transcribed just for you, after the jump.

Note: All typos and such are transcribed from the printed mission statement given out at the press conference.

Responsible New York

Mission Statement

Responsible New York is organized around a core of values, beliefs and principles that are essential to guiding true political reform in the State of New York. Our quest is to create a political movement to return Albany to its rightful owners. Our pledge is help create an organization with no personal agendas, other than to give a voice to all New Yorkers – Democrats, Republicans, Conservatives and Independences from cities. suburbans and rural areas both upstate and downstate.

Today, more than ever, New York State is at a precipice. This isn’t news to New York families who are struggling to make ends meet, nor is it even news to the legislators in Albany or the special interest that own them.

Responsible New York will endorse candidates in the New York State Senate and Assembly. Candidates will be chosen in a non-partisan manner and only for their commitment and their ability to support Responsible New York, removing Albany from the grips of special interest and returning our government to the people who support it. And to truly change Albany we will also endorse and support candidates for Congress who will work to put people first.

Responsible New York pledges that we will:

Seek to enact economic policies which encourage fiscal responsibility and accountability on the part of both the government and its citizen by creating a modern budgetary process that uses professionally acceptable accounting standards and accrual accounting, avoiding unfunded mandates, understated liabilities, elimination of off-line budgeting and back-door borrowing. And to keep all budget increases limited to the rate of inflation.

Support policies to reduce and then eliminate the disproportionate influence narrow special interest currently have on the creation of our laws. We will work to diminish the pervasive and pernicious role of campaign contributions in buying access to legislative decisions.

Support and work with candidates who truly want campaign finance and electoral reform including, but not limited to, redistricting and franking privileges.

Work toward a more equability and fair real estate property tax program to correct the financial burden that property taxes play on both the homeowner and the New York housing market.

Work to correct the imbalance between government employees’ compensation and the private sectors’.

Work toward a more fair and equitable distribution of economic development resources with a program to insure accountable to those who receive it.

To create a government that is more transparent and understandable to all of the citizens of New York.

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